MY OWN PRIVATE MR MIYAGI

I have my own private Mr Miyagi. He lives in the garden shed at the bottom of my mind.

Whenever I need to ask him something, he'll come out, holding a broken garden pot and shake his head in irritated fashion as if I'm always just wasting his time. And frequently he'll even swear at me in his hilarious broken English.

Usually I say something like, "Hey Mr Miyagi! I need some help. I'm struggling with some life stuff at the moment" and eventually, after lots of huffing and puffing, he'll ponder my issue, whatever it happens to be and provide some short, sharp answer.

He's less Zen than the Mr Miyagi you may remember from the original Karate Kid movie, but then again, I guess we all get the Miyagi we deserve. Mine is pretty wired, I got to say. I guess living in my head must be exhausting for him. Poor guy.

This visualisation process was sort of suggested by my hypnotherapist who grew increasingly impatient with me for not persisting with his tried and tested exercises to help with my high anxiety which had proven to work for all his other clients. We'd gone round the houses trying all sorts of ways to chill my mind out in stressful times and in the end this was the best we came up with. I'd told him that I always felt calm when thinking of Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid. At first, he didn't seem to mind this idea but later, when I told him how much it was helping to have my own miniature sensai locked away in my head, he became less happy about it. In fact, looking back over the past months I've spent with Mr Miyagi I think he sort of resents him. You might even say he's jealous.

The thing is though, strangely, this Miyagi method kind of works. Most of the time.

Just this morning, for example, I woke up from a bad dream and was drenched from head to foot in a film of cold sweat. With heart palpitating and a smothering sensation as if I was being throttled by an invisible attacker, I closed my eyes and shouted out to Mr Miyagi.

At first he didn't seem to hear me so I shouted some more.

"MR MIYAGI!!!!"

"What fuck is it, shit?" he shouted from his live-in garden shed, clearly pissed off as I was distracting him from his morning routine of clipping his vast array of bonsai trees.

"I can't breathe!"

"You lie! You can breathe!"

And sure enough I could. Sometimes I just needed to hear him say it in that direct, no-nonsense way he does.

"Why's my heart flopping around like a fish out of water? I think I'm having a heart attack, Mr Miyagi!"

"Put fish back in water then! Fuck!"

I had no idea what that meant but his brutal directness in the way he said things made me think perhaps I wasn't dying after all. I opened my eyes and started my day with a cold shower (Miyagi's idea) followed by some breakfast. I wouldn't speak to Mr Miyagi again until much later that evening when my pangs of dread returned and I broke out in even more sweat and feeling as if Animal from The Muppets was using my heart for his drum set.

"Mr Miyagi!"

No answer.

"MR MIYAGI!!!!"

Still nothing. I now had to go to the bottom of the garden in my mind and knock on the door of his shed all the while feeling shaky and awful as I tried not to collapse on the ground before I got there. As I approached his Wabi Sabi-style dwelling, I could see little Japanese lanterns flickering in the window and it was then I feared the worst.

Why was he not answering me. Was he dead?

"Miyagi! Where are you?!"

I had the worst feeling that I would now find his stiff corpse in the shed and then I would have no longer have any Mr Miyagi to protect and advise me. How could it be that my imaginary Mr Miyagi could possible be dead already? It made no sense to me. It felt a little bit like when I returned from holiday one summer and found my Tamogotchi I left behind was no longer alive. That was upsetting because I had managed to keep it going for roughly 117 days before I absent mindedly forgot to pack him. I never got to say goodbye so was forced to reset. Could I do a hard reset with Mr Miyagi? I had no idea. This was all uncharted territory.

Attempting my own version of the crane as I planned to break down the door of his hut with a karate kick, I suddenly felt Mr Miyagi jump on my back from behind and give me the biggest shock of my life.

"WAKE UP!!!!" he shouted loudly at me.

Lying face first against the freshly cut lawn in the half light, I could feel Mr Miyagi straddling me like I was a packsaddle donkey.

"How you feel now?"

"I feel stressed out of my fucking mind. What were you thinking?"

"You still feel anxious like shit?"

"More stressed than anxious."

"You had a shock. Now you feel different. Moment changed. You no longer in old past. Living present with me here making you uncomfortable in your body. You uncomfortable because you not used to being still now. No good. We have to make you stronger. Live now with me present. Stop time travel to past or future you can't control."

He started strong but went a bit weird at the end. Nevertheless, I got the gist and funnily enough was starting to feel a little better with him holding me captive with his iron thighs squeezing either side of my ribs.

"I love you, Mr Miyagi. You always have an answer even if I'm not always sure what exactly it means."

"Go now. Mr Miyagi need some time to unwind too. You keep me too busy, bitch."

I think he meant "bee" but I wasn't entirely sure.

After he released me from his grip, I got up and breathed in a good lungful of cool evening air, exporting it slowly through my nose as he had taught me.

"That's good boy. You keep doing nose work like you making nice wine and anxious thoughts will lessen."

Then, suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to hug my Mr Miyagi but as I went with arms outstretched he must have seen it as a form of aggression toward him and he kicked me hard in the balls, winding me so that now I had no choice but to focus my breathing in a strategic way like I was playing a wind instrument.

"Kick in balls good for helping you focus when you breathe. Now you have no choice."

Spluttering from the attack on my genitals, I just about managed to get some words out.

"I just wanted to give you a hug, Mr Miyagi!"

He sighed in that way he always does when he's disappointed in me.

"Mr Miyahi don't hug. You need him hard master not soft. You too soft already son. Make you hard like me then you won't break so easily."

And with that he slid the key into the door of his garden shed and disappeared for the night.

Lying there on the ground, still badly winded, I felt strangely calm. Perhaps it was because I could hear Mr Miyagi playing his Sakuhachi flute from inside his hut. Or perhaps it was true what he said. All I needed all this time was a swift hard kick in the balls.

If you yourself are suffering from anxiety, I highly recommend it!

You'll need to get your own Mr Miyagi though, cos you're definitely not having mine.